Thank you, India.

I never expected to find what I found in India. I wasn’t running away from life again, I was running away from myself. I had become someone that I didn’t even recognize.

Rishikesh is an amazing place and will always hold such an important piece of my heart. Its colourful building, busy loud streets, greasy samosa’s, dodgy monkeys and slow moving cows. Its teal green river to cleanse your sins, western amenities and banana lassies. Head nods and hand gestures, fake smiles and bad deals. It felt like a home away from home, we had our favourite cafes, which ones to go to if you needed a good toilet, good wifi, or a good cup of coffee. The culture had its up and downs, It was hard to catch a tan when you have to cover shoulders to ankles in order to avoid unwanted attention. As amazing as that city was I knew what I was there to do, my schooling.

I dug my nose down and went to as many classes as I mentally could handle, I was so angry and frustrated, I was preaching “ don’t get bitter, get better” but I tasted like a lemon. I didn’t want anything, I didn’t want companionship, I didn’t want flirting and I didn’t want love. I think that was the saddest thing to ever admit. I have always wanted love, that hopeless romantic, fairy tale, happy ending kind of love. But not this time, I was stubborn, selfish, cold and mean, I had broken a few hearts over this last year, and not because they weren’t good guys, but because I just didn’t care. Im not good at not caring, actually thats a lie, Im really good at not caring, and I hated it. I wanted to care again, so bad, I wanted to be a partner, to share my life with someone, I wanted to love again. I had lost faith. I wasn’t convinced there was someone out there that shared the same idea’s on life, partnership, parenthood, travel, money and business as me. ( yes, I know thats a long difficult checklist ) I wanted to do everything, all the time, I wanted it all. Now, over my trials and tribulations with love, I have discovered that you can’t force your way of thinking on anyone, you can’t make someone a dreamer, you can’t make someone a “go getter”. It won’t work if only one partner is motivated to achieve everything they have ever dreamed of having in their life, and the other one is content in the mundane, drinking on weekends, repetitive T.V dinners and the same old 9-5 with sex on Sunday’s, before bed. I didn’t want to force it, I was done being the motivator, I was finished trying to share my dream with someone, only to find myself financing the entire dream just to show them it was possible.

rishikesh love

where I found it.

I kept telling myself “just do it on your own, Sam” Follow your dream, you have done it on your own the whole time anyways, you didn’t need a cheer leader, you knew how to push yourself, it would be less expensive and you wouldn’t have to convince two people. It would be less hassle and more glory for you. No one could take it from you. But, there was one thing I was forgetting, my heart. The most vital organ in my body, the one thing that kept me alive, pumping blood to my entire body, the one thing I can’t live without, can’t silence, can’t stop following. I owed it so much. Of course it wanted to be heard, It wanted to be full, it wanted to be held, loved and nurtured.

I thought that india would help me learn how to not be so stupid in love, to stop trying to love people so hard, naive, giving them all of me. On the contrary, it showed me how beautiful that quality was to find in a person. I was shown so much love, so much true love in those two months. That, instead of painting the walls that I had built over the last year, I slowly but surely pulled down each and every brick. I took down all my barriers. There is so few people in this world who truly know how to love, to be in love, To love loving so much they are willing to offer their whole entire world in exchange for it. How beautiful that is. I found myself again, I was so, so in love, more importantly, so in love with the way I remembered how to love again. Do you know what the funny thing is about a broken heart? That the only way to fix it is more love. Its the culprit and the cure.